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Although most old-timers to the California Academy of Sciences would count the planetarium, the aquarium, and the natural history exhibits as the major components of the museum, the more than 250,000 school age kids who went through the museum during its first year of operation would add the newest Big Attraction to their list: a living, four-story rain forest enclosed in a sphere– the only one of its kind in the country.

Among the goals of the Academy is to ensure that the exhibits are ever-changing, so the museum doesn’t feel so much like a…museum.  To get an overview of the envisioning process, the breakthroughs in design and architecture and the decisions behind building one of the greenest public buildings in the country, take a look at Architecture in Harmony with Nature.  It is a soft bound coffee table book published by Chronicle Books: http://www.chroniclebooks.com

Alison Brown of the Academy talks today about bringing the sciences to the masses, how high-tech met low-tech in the construction process, and even answers the question:  why is that penguin wearing a raincoat?  Off-topic to be sure, but a great story nonetheless.